Fort Brockhurst’s parade ground was empty save for a few soldiers at the far end. Most of their ordnance and manpower remained hidden, no doubt ready for rapid deployment. From this low angle Damian could only see a small part of the upper ramparts, but just visible were hints of Hamid’s first-line defences, probably machine gun posts. These defenders would have an excellent field of fire down on any attackers, whereas he could see no hills or high buildings that might give a corresponding advantage to Quilter’s men.
His amateur assessment of the fort’s defences was cut short by the approach of the sergeant, followed by two of his men, each manacled to a prisoner. Still in their army shirts and trousers, the prisoners appeared subdued but unharmed.
They entered the room, where the sergeant came to a smart halt, saluted and barked: “Prisoners and escorts, sah!”
“You see!” Hamid smiled and waved at them, as though producing rabbits out of a hat. “In mint condition.”
‘Mint’ might be over-egging it, but they certainly appeared to be physically unharmed.
Damian went up to the first one, a tall fair haired teenager and asked: “Been treated okay?”
He nodded dumbly, plainly terrified.
The other prisoner was older, medium height, starting to go thin on top. Damian put the same question to him.
This one managed to find his voice: “Suppose so. Haven’t tortured us. Yet.”
Damian was turning away, when the prisoner added: “Yea, they treated us great! Apart from fucking killing our corporal!”
A swipe from the sergeant’s fist sent the prisoner crashing down, bringing his manacled escort with him. For a few moments they lay in a heap on the floor, before managing to untangle themselves and return to upright.
“That happens once more and I walk out.” Damian was seething.
Hamid did not reprimand his sergeant but seemed to grasp that striking prisoners did not help his cause, so merely grunted and said:
“Take them away. We’ve seen that they’re fit enough.”
“They stay!” said the Prime Minister.
“Who do you think gives the orders here?” Sneered Hamid.
The situation was becoming tense, so Damian decided something soothing might be called for:
“I thought you wanted to negotiate. You must have hundreds of men on your side. Even with these two I’m heavily outnumbered.”
His real reason for wanting to keep the prisoners close by was that this might give them a better chance of survival. If they were back in their cells when Quilter attacked, they would be indistinguishable from the defenders, who would hopefully be slaughtered to the last man; but in the same room as himself, in whose gut resided a tracer, they should stand a fighting chance.
Hamid considered the idea in silence for maybe a couple of minutes. Ambled around the room, finished his cup of tea. Finally he said:
“Very well. They can stay. But so do mine: The Sergeant, two guards and both the prisoner escorts. You’ll be outnumbered six to three, with all the firepower on my side, so don’t even think of trying anything silly.”
“I’m not suicidal. Don’t have seventy two virgins waiting for me.” The Prime Minister selected one of the white metal chairs and sat down. “Now, can we get started?”
59
The two handcuffed pairs – prisoners and escorts – sat down on the sofa, where they made an odd sight. The armed guards remained standing, one of each side of the room, ever watchful. Their commander, self-styled General Salah-ud-Din, sat down facing the Prime Minister, with the sergeant, also ever watchful, between them.
For the next twelve hours Damian would have to put on an act: pretend to be negotiating, whereas his true role was merely to spin out time without provoking Hamid into more killing. Talk, talk and more talk. What they discussed hardly mattered, because by midnight his opposite number would hopefully be dead.
“All we know is that you have illegally occupied Fort Brockhurst and have made some demands,” began the Prime Minister. “Let’s start with what you hope to get out of this crazy scheme.”
Hamid Khan put his elbows on the table and fixed Damian with those strange milky blue eyes. He must be mad, surely – whatever ‘mad’ might mean, so how had he been able to recruit so many followers? There must be some fault in the wiring of the human brain that makes the combination of insanity and brute force so inexplicably appealing. Stalin, Hitler, all dictators you care to mention, have only been able to operate with a degree of popular support. As yet Hamid did not command a force the size of the Wehrmacht or Red Army. It was up to Damian to ensure his efforts do so were strangled at birth.
“We live in an age of fragmentation,” began Hamid. He might be bonkers, but his voice was cultured and persuasive. “It started after the first war, when three great empires, the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Ottomans, all disappeared, spawning a kindergarten of new nations. After world war two, it was the turn of the British, who, unlike the French, didn’t try to hang onto the red bits on the map, but donated it piecemeal to the new United Nations. End of the cold war and now the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia exploded into ethnic shrapnel.”
Damian set his face to show interest. Hamid could talk all day if he wanted to, as long as the clock kept ticking towards ten.
“Now it’s the small country that’s beautiful. Maybe we’ll soon be living in our own little versions of Andorra or Liechtenstein.” Hamid laughed at his own joke.
Damian managed a wan smile.
“The Islamic Republic of Hattin merely seeks to follow this trend,” he continued. “A modest piece of mother earth we can call our own. There’s yet another way we’re in tune with the times: Britain may be godless, but - praise be to Allah - that’s not the case everywhere. My ancestral homeland of Pakistan is proof that a state can be created by God. So is Israel. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia also live by God’s word.”
“What happens if I decide to take a holiday in sunny Mecca?” Damian could contain himself no longer.
Hamid looked puzzled. “You couldn’t. Mecca is restricted to those of us of The Faith.”
“Exactly. So tomorrow I shall advise His Majesty, as Defender of our Faith, that forthwith only Christians shall be allowed into the English holy city of Canterbury.”
Hamid was not amused. “That’s quite different.”
Damian: “On the contrary, it’s an exact comparison.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Damian realised he might have gone too far. His job was to let Hamid waffle on, not antagonise him. So he asked:
“This ‘modest piece of mother earth’ you talk about. Fort Brockhurst isn’t much of a country. Smaller even than the Vatican. Do you have anywhere else in mind?”
“Doesn’t really matter where we start. Places where Moslems are already in the majority - Bradford, Leicester - might seem the obvious choices, but it could be anywhere. With Fort Brockhurst as the nucleus, the Islamic Republic of Hattin could even be born right here in Gosport. Access to the sea, good trading propects…..”
“The citizens of Gosport, who’s families have lived here for generations, might object.”
“That didn’t seem to bother the Brits when they allowed to Jews to take Palestine. In the late eighteen hundreds Jews made up five percent of Palestine’s population - less than ours now in Britain. Look what happened to the poor Palestinians: still waiting for the homeland that was taken from them.”
Hamid had shot himself in the foot with this argument. It confirmed that the Army of Hattin had to be stopped right here, before it got ideas for taking over the whole country. But Damian couldn’t afford to be too controversial, so just said:
“You’ve got the wrong culprits. When the League of Nations gave Britain the hopeless task of running Palestine, we made a reasonable fist of it between the wars, keeping the factions apart and limiting immigration. After world war two, bankrupt and knackered, with the holocaust pouring huge numbers of Jews into the Holy land, we simply gave up and we
nt home. If you want to blame anyone, look to the surrounding Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Syria – who refused the United Nations partition plan and then, after the ceasefire, kept the lands they’d taken.”
“All history,” said Hamid, airily. “Give us Gosport and I’m sure we could do a population swap for anyone not happy to stay on. After World War Two, umpteen million Poles, Germans, whatever, were relocated. A few thousand Gosportians would be a doddle.”
The dialogue of the deaf went on and on, Hamid rolling out his fantasies, the Prime Minister buttoning his lip, when these became too outrageous. Anything to keep the charade going until the magic hour of ten.
They broke for lunch, a cold buffet brought in on a trolley by a couple of Hamid’s boys, everyone eating where they sat. This was not easy for the manacled couples on the sofa, but they managed. The two armed guards ate in shifts, one dining while the other kept watch.
Eating now took precedence over talking, of which there had recently been a surfeit. Damian was left wondering where all this was heading. Hamid didn’t appear to be a fool and must realise it could only end in tears. Instead of sudden death by suicide vest, Salah-ud-Din’s chosen martyrdom looked to be a more prolonged affair. But martyrdom it must surely be. He couldn’t expect any British government to accept such absurd demands.
Did his men also realise what was in store for them? Some must have an inkling. Damian was at a loss to understand how, in an age of science and progress, so many people could still welcome death for a religious belief. For centuries the Christian church had been torn apart with schisms, where heretics could be cured by the simple expedient of burning them at the stake. Cleansing by fire made sinners fit for eternal life. Now Moslems were the ones seeking trips to paradise. Arguing with such fanaticism was impossible, but he had to try and keep it going for a few hours more. Until darkness and election firework time, when Quilter’s men would have a chance do their stuff without being massacred.
60
As lunch was cleared away, the Prime Minister realised their discussions were running out of steam. Hamid would soon tire of having his suggestions dismissed or put on hold. It was still only early afternoon. How the devil was he to occupy the next few hours?
The brainwave came to him out of the blue. The clue was Night Watchman: the tail-ender promoted in the batting order towards the end of the day. Batsman. Cricket. Of course! Would it work? Worth a try.
So before Hamid could get going again Damian said:
“Interesting Test Match. Pakistan in command, it would seem.”
Hamid’s face lit up. Martyrdom could be delayed if the subject was cricket, the colonies’ most prized gift from the Raj.
“Yea, the boys haven’t had such a good day against India since… well, maybe since the Champions Trophy in two thousand and seventeen. Remember that?”
The Prime Minster shook his head. Actually, he did have a vague recollection, but pleading ignorance should really get Hamid going. It did:
“Fakhar Zaman was let-off early on, then slammed a century. After that, Mohammad Amir skittled India out. Only one-day stuff, I know, but it was magic!”
“Now you have India on the ropes again….”
“Yep. This time in a test match. Babar Ali and Asad Zaman both with centuries. Pakistan declared at four hundred and fifty two for six. In reply India are seventy nine for three.”
“Looking good.”
“But early days. India are no pushover.”
Babar Ali is a left-handed opener, right?”
Hamid said that was correct and went on to elaborate on Pakistan’s chances. Not only did all this use up valuable time, it also subtly altered the atmosphere. Could you kill a fellow with whom you’d just been talking cricket?
They then turned to other sports, including football and Damian’s time at West Ham. Hamid was an Aston Villa fan. As the afternoon wore on, discussions still mundane, Damian began to feel schizoid. Here he was having parlour-room chat with a terrorist, who had personally beheaded a man with half the world watching.
Eventually even this parlour-room chat started to dry up. Hamid’s demand that Britain should cede land to the Islamic republic of Hattin had been noted by the Prime Minister. Nothing more. They had then whiled away the afternoon with what amounted to idle gossip. Terrorists are often credited with diabolical cunning, whereas in fact they are usually wounded souls with limited abilities. By raising and training this private army Hamid Khan had shown himself more capable than most, but now cracks were starting to appear.
Earlier Damian had pointed out that ‘General Salah-ud-Din’s proposals were so serious that nothing could be agreed without a full meeting of the British cabinet. The ‘general’ had accepted this and promised no further executions until he had an answer.
It was approaching six o’clock when they finally ran out of chat and Hamid said:
“Well, Prime Minister, you’re free to go. Discuss what we’ve talked about with your colleagues and come back with an answer by this time tomorrow. It had better be favourable. Otherwise…..” He smiled at the prisoners and made a throat-cutting gesture.
Normally Damian would have been out of Fort Brockhurst faster than ripping apart an opposition defence for West Ham, but there was a problem: the prisoners. Although Hamid had pledged their security for the next twenty four hours, General Quilter’s assault was due in a mere four hours. If the prisoners were back in some unknown cell they would be in danger from friendly fire. However, if they remained close to Damian, the tracer currently making its way through his gut should greatly improve their survival prospects.
So the Prime Minister responded: “You put me in a difficult position. Because you didn’t allow me to drive in, as agreed, the British public now know I’ve spent the day talking to a terrorist. Which they won’t like. I therefore need to hang around for a few hours more until the crowd outside becomes fed up and goes home.”
Hamid grinned. The notion that he had succeeded in making a British Prime Minister scared of his own people was immensely appealing. With a great show of magnanimity, he spread his hands and said: “Be my guest!”
61
In 1973 a convict on parole called Olsson raided a Stockholm bank and took four hostages. The stand-off lasted six days, during which Olsson treated his victims brutally, so the expectation was they would turn against him when freed. Instead, the ex hostages refused to testify against the bank robber and started to raise money for his defence.
The shrinks got to work on this conundrum and gave it a name: Stockholm syndrome. It can occur when hostages spend so long with their captors they start bonding with them.
There was no danger of Britain’s Prime Minister bonding with the terrorist Salah-ud-Din, even though they had spent an unexpectedly convivial afternoon discussing Pakistan’s cricketing prospects. But Damian was interested in the reverse side of the Stockholm syndrome: the effect contact with hostages might have on their captors. There are numerous examples of hostages being killed after quite lengthy incarcerations, but logic suggests that the odds on a lethal outcome should diminish the longer the two enemies are together. If it had been relatively easy to kill Corporal Smither, whom they had only just captured, it might be more difficult to do the same to men they had recently eaten lunch with. Or so Damian hoped.
Hamid departed as soon as he had announced Damian could stay a while longer. There was an army to run, a defence to maintain. More chat, even cricket chat, was something he could ill afford. The guards were told that the Prime Minister could leave at any time, but to keep a careful watch on the captives. Damian had been scared these two might have been taken back to their cells, but fortunately this thought had not occurred to Hamid. With no orders to do anything different, the set-up in the room remained the same, except for the absence of the commander: two handcuffed couples on the sofa; two watchful armed guards. And the Prime Minister.
Damian got up to stretch his legs. There had been too much sitting around; as an exerci
se-aholic, he craved his fix. The guards eyed him warily, but made no comment. Pacing the room might be permitted, but he was doubtful whether he could go much beyond that.
Stopping in front of the tall teenaged prisoner, he asked: “You okay?”
A guard: “No talking!”
“I didn’t hear the general ban talking.”
The guard didn’t reply.
They had been locked in the same room for hours. Tiring and boring. Damian decided to test the Stockholm syndrome in reverse: see if he could make the guards bend a little. So he said:
“Opening our mouths can’t hurt. You can always stop us if we say anything you don’t like.”
Whether the guard would have responded they’d never know, because the teenage prisoner blurted out: “I’m bursting for a pee!”
Trying to smother a smile, the guard said: “Off you go then.”
This was easier said than done, seeing that the prisoner was linked around the wrist to his escort. There was a toilet at the far end of the room, but how the two of them would tackle a urinary procedure was an interesting question. Who would pull down the prisoner’s zip? Who would….? Let’s not go into details.
As if reading Damian’s mind, the guard said: “We allow them to unshackle in there. If I hear him trying anything funny I put a burst through the door. Killed with your pants down is not a good way to go. Probably drill holes in our guy as well, but that’s an incentive for him to do his job properly.”
So…. Prisoners were temporarily freed from their escorts when in the loo. Could this knowledge be turned to advantage? The youngest prisoner looked too immature and scared to be of much use, but his colleague who had received a fist in the face for making an uncalled for comment seemed to be made of sterner stuff. Could he be persuaded to play a part during the coming showdown?
Damian waited a while after the pair had returned from their toilet visit. Waited for the boredom factor to once more take effect. Then, during one of his circuits round the room, he stopped in front of one of the guards:
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